The Unravelling of Story in The Reef

Abstract

The Reef reflects Wharton’s continued interest in the ways in which power over language and narrative is gendered. Published seven years after The House of Mirth, The Reef also demonstrates how masculine narratives silence women’s voices and how women fail to define their own stories of identity. However, while The House of Mirth examined the challenges to female discursive power within the world of upper class, wealthy women of leisure, The Reef extends the analysis into two different directions. First, Sophy Viner, a lower class woman, who makes a living as a governess and lady’s companion and who lacks the socioeconomic power of Old New York society matrons, introduces the effect of class differences on female control over story. Second, Anna Leath, an upper class woman living as an expatriate in France, introduces the struggle for female voice within the context of an international and cosmopolitan culture. Seven years after the publication of The Reef, Wharton would publish a series of essays titled French Ways and Their Meaning identifying French culture as particularly appreciative of adult women with curious minds and strong opinions. Nevertheless, Anna is less empowered than Sophy in the text.